It’s been a long, long while since I’ve done a veg ferment here, but whether or not the calendar agrees, spring has sprung and I’m in the mood to pickle spring things. Furthermore, I’ve been Irish-American by marriage for 5.5 years now, and this pickle is a lovely, light shade of spring green. Perhaps it’s not the shade of a St. Patrick’s Day parade, but I still consider it a respectful nod to St. Patrick’s Day.

Celery may be a surprising vegetable to ferment (or maybe not, you tell me). It ferments very nicely, especially when done with another vegetable in the mix, and the flavors are super fun. It generally remains quite crispy, unless the stalk are very thin (garden- or farm stand-style) or very old and reedy. Although I’m a fan of fermenting vegetables that are a touch past their prime, I don’t recommend fermenting those older celery stalks. The aforementioned reediness gets in the way of my enjoyment, and they don’t tend to crisp up as well as some back of the crisper vegetables do (see photos of the radish I used for this ferment).

Choice of vegetables is always important. While a radish that’s a little aged will ferment wonderfully, I don’t personally like using older celery for fermentation.

Celery Radish Pickles Recipe

Yield: 1 quart

If you don’t have access to heirloom radishes or daikons, you can absolutely substitute whatever radishes you have on hand. Just be aware that the color will be impacted. Green meat radishes (pictured) are pretty spicy, but spicy radishes aren’t a requirement for this recipes. If you’re new to fermented pickling, check out the Pickle Basics Guide before you get going.

4 large stalks celery

1/2 pound (225 g) radish, preferably green meat or daikon, but any radish will do

Rinse and trim celery stalks and radish. remove any soft or unappealing spots on the vegetables, but leave the peels otherwise in tact.

If using a cylindrical radish (such as daikon or green meat) slice into 1-inch thick rounds and quarter each round. If using small cherry bell radishes, halve. If using larger, heirloom radishes, cut into 3/4-inch cubes. Cut celery stalks crosswise into 3/4-inch pieces.

Place half of the celery pieces into a quart jar. Place the radish quarters on top, then add the remaining celery. This is particularly nice looking with daikon or bright colored radishes (black radishes are great) but your brine will be murkier with anything but white or green and you won’t necessarily get the pale green colored pickles that make me sing spring.

When all the vegetables are in the jar, there should be roughly 1 1/2 inches of space left at the top of the jar. Pour brine into the jar until the vegetables are just covered. Apply your weight, cover your jar and leave at room temperature for 5 days to 2 weeks.

If you’re new to fermented pickling, taste at 7 days. If they taste sour enough, they’re done. If you think they could use a bit more oomph, put the weight back on, cover and let sit for several more days. I prefer these at 2 weeks.

Once they’ve reached your desired acidity, remove the weight, close the jar lid tightly and store in the fridge.

A thick round of green meat radish pairs great with celery when quartered.

I’m kind of obsessed with all the crazy shades of color I have going in my pickle jars right now.

Several years ago I was hit by a car riding my bike. I told the whole story on stage and won the title, “Best Storyteller in Philadelphia” as a result. (If you don’t like swearing, you may not want to watch that video, btw. Language is very adult. I got hit by a car, cut me some slack.). So at least there was one good outcome. The less good outcomes of this guy taking me down were years of physical therapy culminating in spine surgery when I could no longer walk, 6 months of disability and missed worked and a liver that seems to have been damaged by the medication that I will never repudiate because it gave me back the ability to walk and stopped the excruciating pain from radiating down my legs. Seems like a fair exchange, right?

The piles of farm veg I use for liver support.

Anyway, I’ve self-diagnosed this liver jawn from the book You Are What You Eat by Gillian McKeith (among other sources). It’s kind of a fun way to play “What’s wrong with me?” using diagnostic techniques from multiple branches of non-mainstream medicine. My tongue, skin and functions all pointed to a liver issue and (also an insufficient amount of dietary fat) when I first used the book as a guide several years ago. Since then I’ve tried to care for my liver, by cutting back on alcohol and eating foods that the liver loves. I also sip on milk thistle infusions and consume a foraged nettle tincture from time to time. And here you thought I was the least hippy of the fermenters.

These pickles are a combination of things I like to eat, things I think are pretty in a jar and things that make my insides happy. While I am a proponent of fermented foods for many reasons, health is definitely why I got started, and while it has definitely not made me a perfect specimen, in some ways my ferments have truly helped me.

Here is a favorite, healing pickle that I make if something tells me my liver is unhappy with me again.

The selected ingredients:

Black Radish, Daikon, Watermelon Radish – Radishes have long been eaten alongside fatty foods, perhaps to support the liver in its duties. Maybe this is why the Japanese often eat daikon with tempura and the French enjoy buttered radishes? I also love the colors this particular combination of radishes imparts.

Pickled rhinoceros! Just kidding. Just a black radish.

Burdock Root – Good for SO many things, including eczema, a disease my parents were informed I had while they were still in the delivery room.

Turmeric – My go-to anti-inflammatory. I put it in anything I’m going to use as medicine.

Unassuming from the outside, but once sliced, these watermelon radishes live up to the beauty of their namesake fruit.

HEALING PICKLES

Uncooked radishes, including fermented radishes, can be less than optimal for people with severe thyroid conditions. If that applies to you, you may want to sit this one out. This is the quantity of sliced veggies I got into my quart jar. The size of your radishes may differ from the size of mine, so be prepared for some snacky bites if you have a bit too much for your jar, or just use a larger container.

Also, these stink. I love the smell of fermenting veggies, but for real, these are only delightful if you too love that stench. I’m not sure, but I think it’s the black radish that fills the room with the aroma of microbes at work.

Today marked my first kimchi-making class. I had a wonderful time with a room packed full of 13 students. IndyHall was kind enough to host us and my wonderful husband was kind enough to sous-ferment (or whatever you call it), making it possible for me to go crazy with my ramblings on all things fermentation.

This class got me thinking: just about every batch of kimchi I’ve made has been different. The constants for me are always brine, ginger, alliums and heat.

Brine: I always brine rather than sweat the vegetables (sweating is commonly done with sauerkraut) because I like to have bigger pieces of cabbage, and I prefer the flavor of brined kimchi to directly salted kimchi. If you’re going to sweat the napa cabbage, you need small pieces, and that’s just a non-starter for me. Adding salt directly also gives you less room to adapt the salt level. You need a decent amount to get enough liquid off that cabbage! If I had the space or, you know, an extra bathroom that was never touched by naked human flesh, I would definitely fill a bathtub with whole leaves, whole heads of cabbage or giant chunks. Since I don’t have the space, I keep my chunks as large as is manageable for my countertop fermentation activities (about 2×2 inches).

Ginger: I LOVE ginger in all its forms. One of my favorite non-kimchi ferments is ginger beer. I drink it fresh and age it to bone dry booze. I suck on fresh ginger at the first hint of belly upset and always have some candied ginger in my bag in case of emergencies. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that when I made kimchi the first time and the recipe called for 1/2 inch of ginger, I added 3 inches instead. Sometimes I add 6 inches, but I think that’s my limit.

Alliums: Garlic and scallions are musts in just about every kimchi recipe I’ve ever seen. I take it overboard and throw in whatever else I’ve got from the allium family. I often brine leeks with my cabbage and radish. I usually throw an onion into the paste mixture and shallots have seen their way in a few times as well.

Heat: Okay, this is negotiable. According to Sandor Ellix Katz in his AMAZING, must-buy book The Art of Fermentationin some northern regions of Korea, red pepper is not used at all. I’ve read in several places that hot, red peppers didn’t reach Korea until the 1600s, but kimchi has a 2,000 year tradition, so if you’re going to be REALLY traditional, kimchi and hot pepper aren’t strictly linked. I do like to throw at least a pinch (and sometimes a cup) of gochugaru (korean red pepper powder) or red pepper flakes into my kimchis.

Everything else has been in flux. Yes, I usually use napa cabbage and daikon, but, don’t gasp, I’ve totally gone American style with regular old cabbage and cherry belle radishes. I’ve included carrots, peppers, thin slices of cauliflower, kelp pieces and many more things from the vegetable drawer or garden that needed to get used. I’ve made gruels of white rice flour, brown rice flour, wheat flour, no flour. I’ve used ripe fruit in my paste blend. I’ve gone dead simple and left out all but the barest essentials. To me, this is the beauty of kimchi; flexible rules that result in pure deliciousness every time and a tradition of using what’s good, seasonal and available in order to enrich your diet and the flavor of your dinner.